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Thursday, December 03, 2009

MY DAUGHTER THE ANGEL

Would any of you know Wendy Rush Chapel? She's my Wendy-the-Pooh. Oh, how I like her!

Over the weekend a single mom found her fourteen year old daughter hanged. The momma discovered her. Trauma set in to say the least. My daughter went out and bought the woman a dress to wear for her daughter's funeral. That's the way she is; that's how she thinks.

But would you guess how Wendy-the-Pooh got such wings? She received them in her own pain. You see the 7th of December will mark 18 years since the murder of her fiance and his brother. Again to say the least, the situation was traumatic as well as devastating. None of us had been so shattered.

The world seemed to bow to the Phillips and Rush families with both generosities and kindnesses. They could not have been of greater help. A few of the young women went shopping and brought by several dresses for Wendy to choose from for the funeral for she couldn't do such for herself. What a remarkable gesture on the part of her friends.

So now 18 years later, when another happens upon ghastly horror, Wendy-the-Pooh knew immediately one thing that could be done. After all, she had received her wings 18 years earlier and remembered God's grace.

I attend Wendy's church. I was at the visitation for the young girl last night. This has been a devastating event for us (and the second time in five months that a teenager from our youth has died--the other one died in a car wreck).

While there is nothing anyone can say or do to make it better, it seems that Wendy is following the example of the man who came to polish people's shoes before the funeral because he knew the family would probably not think of doing so.

Terry Rush

My World

We all get lost in our workaholism, people pleasing, and numbing behaviors as we try to escape the pain of life and the messiness of loving others. But some of us appear more whole than others, and that may be the greatest danger of all. It results in the last addiction: we rely on ourselves to heal ourselves, and so we miss the healing path.

Sharon Hersh...The Last Addiction

I miss being in the company of risky and complex thinkers, people who are invested in our culture and who challenge me to think to the edges of my comfort zones. I believed then and I believe now that where everybody thinks the same nobody thinks very much.Rosaria Butterfield...The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert